


Raise Accusing Eyes

by clutzycricket



Series: For and Against the Devil [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, F/M, Power Dynamics, Thank You Satan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 06:17:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4511037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tywin Lannister meets the devil in an alleyway near the Stepstones, blood on his sword and a smile on his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raise Accusing Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Anna Nalick's Car Crash.

Tywin Lannister meets the devil in an alleyway near the Stepstones, blood on his sword and a smile on his face. He’d launched a spell that his superiors would disapprove of, but the net result was that the dawn was coming, and with it a dozen less monsters.

“Nice work,” the devil said, offering a hand. “A bit blunt, but you got your message across.”

“Who are you?” Tywin asked, hand on his gun and wondering if he should radio for back-up.

“Aerys Targaryen,” the man said, stepping further into the light. His silver-pale hair was tobacco-stained by the shitty streetlights, but he had the Valyrian bones and something subtly off about his movements. “There is a good coffee shop about two blocks that way.”

~

Joanna didn’t seem terribly surprised to hear about it, his fiance sitting with a stack of books and ink from her fingers staining the loose lock of hair that tended to get in her eyes. “He does that when he gets bored.”

“You have a habit of conversing with demons?” Tywin asked.

“I knew his wife since we were girls,” Joanna smiled fondly. “Aerys was always very easy to lead around- I think he was half in love with me, once, before we agreed that it would lead too easily to hate. And I was wise enough to know how that tale would end.”

It was more complicated than that, he knew- Tywin was the better of the two at grand gestures, shock and awe and hammer blows of authority, but Joanna wielded her power like river water and sunlight, so delicate you didn’t always feel it. 

“He is useful,” Joanna added, and that was that.

~

The Stepstones were cleared in three months, with Tywin and Aerys in the lead, an overeager Baratheon rookie and a few others. Barristan Selmy earned a Guard’s cloak for it, the white cloth spelled against blood and most magics. Lewyn Martell earned his stripes as well, but stayed wary as a cat of him, dark eyes watching.

“He needs a collar,” Joanna said to Aerys softly, swirling her wine. “And leverage against Aliandra and her heir.”

“The water wizards have supported us loyally through the Blackfyre incursions,” Rhaella protested. She was small and pregnant again, smudges under her eyes and hair worn in a flawless bun.

“And now Maelys is dead, they have no enemies to fear but our control,” Aerys mused, his eyes ever shifting hues of black, purple, and blue. The demon of madness was grinning. “A reminder that now they aren’t bound to us by need, they can’t just slither out at will.”

~

It backfired, later, he supposed, though he couldn’t tell when it properly soured.

The Braavosi Cult, probably. Aerys had wanted them rooted out and burned properly, as he had done with the Reynes and Tarbecks. Tywin had frowned and pointed out that Braavos was based in New Orleans, too far off from his base of power for anything that wouldn’t draw federal attention. A quiet word and some clever hired hands had resolved the issue well enough, anyway, and he had paid off enough of the debt with his own funds to keep the Iron Bank off of them.

Joanna had sighed at that. “He’ll never forgive you for that,” she said, hand on the baby. She had taken to having Jaime practice his reading to the growing fetus, while Cersei sulked at the loss of attention. (Joanna had frowned, at that, and reminded him that they were sending the twins to boarding school. She’d never quite said why, but her white, tight lips and clenched hands had wrung the promise out of him. He had studied them, a bit, and wondered at Cersei’s venom at the idea. Surely she realized she could run the school in a week if she tried?)

“It needed to be done,” Tywin said, as if it was that simple.

“Magic and obligations are delicate, especially with a dragon’s ego,” she said, a hand down his arm. “Just… be careful?”

He nodded, and quietly procured some texts. 

The baby is born malformed, one eye as black as Aerys’ at the worst of his moods, and Joanna strokes Tyrion’s cheeks and Tywin is reminded that she warned him against it.

When he hears someone whisper that surely some power struck the boy to check his ego… well…

The Lannister appointments slow to a trickle. Old Willem Darry is given the job of head of security that should have been Tygget’s, and Aerys’ whims start to go against their carefully constructed plans. 

One thing he does not do, though, is kill Steffon Baratheon. He’s Aerys’ blood, true, and rumors swirl he may replace Tywin, but he is fundamentally a good man, one without the stomach for the long-term work needed as Aerys’ mortal anchor. He and his Estermont hedgewitch manage three sons, no daughters to marry to the eldest boy.

Then that damn Darklyn sorcerer and his Silicon Valley necromancer of a wife bound Aerys for six months, and it took Barristan Selmy to get him out. (Tywin was tired, at this point- power was power, but Rhaegar was Despair, not Fucking Madness. Aerys was a dance he had been dealing with since he was eighteen, and the demon was petulant whenever he realized he was not the center of Joanna and Tywin’s world.)

But Aerys blames Tywin for the whole incident, thinks he is planning on murdering Aerys and replacing him with Rhaegar and Cersei, and sends Steffon to Boston for a “proper” bride. 

He and his wife dies just in the city limits, just outside his territory, in the water.

Aerys blames him again, which isn’t true- he was busy caring for Joanna, who had found a lump and died so fast that the nurses had taken to wearing holy symbols in the floor. Tywin found that he didn’t care about Aerys’ blame as much, there, though- Aerys hadn’t been to see him for a month after her death, only his older son’s always grieving voice giving condolences and admitting that allowing Aerys to see him right now was a less than brilliant idea.

For all of his grief, he knows Rhaegar is right-Joanna had known magic better, had always loathed necromancy, and would have killed him herself if he let Aerys bring her back in any form. Because Gods knew he couldn’t be trusted to do it right.

Less than a month later, Rhaegar is to marry young Doran Martell’s sister, niece of the man Joanna ordered collared to the guard. Rhaella smiles to herself, faintly, during the wedding, the only true smug expression he has ever seen on her face.

And Jaime, naive, gullible Jaime, has a white cloak over his shoulders.

 It takes the disappearance of college student Lyanna Stark stretching on for over a year and a half before he can call on a few… specialized tools to the Targaryen stronghold. Over twenty years as Aerys’ “servant” means he can get them in easily.

Rhaegar’s son was smuggled out, and the Martell girl managed to live, but the daughter was scarred and they said her magic was erratic at best.

And Aerys, his wife, and two of his children were dead.

He counted that as a victory, if a hollow one.


End file.
